Taxonomic Study of Shallow-Water Octopuses (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) in Japan and Adjacent Waters using Mitochondrial Genes with Perspectives on Octopus DNA Barcoding

Abstract

ABSTRACT A recent study revised the generic level taxonomy of the family Octopodidae, and several species groups that were previously included in Octopus are now recognized as independent genera. However, knowledge regarding phylogenetic relationships among taxa in the family Octopodidae is still poor. The phylogenetic relationships of shallow-water benthic octopus species in Japan and adjacent waters were examined in the present study using mitochondrial DNA cytochrome c oxidase subunits I and III (COI and COIII, respectively) sequence data, and the taxonomic statuses of the octopus species were compared to those derived by morphological identification. We obtained COI (657 bp) and COIII (464 bp) sequences from 45 taxa assigned to 34 species of seven genera. Samples used were voucher specimens stored in the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo. Sequences of the genes of both Haliphron atlanticus and Tremoctopus violaceus from GenBank were included as outgroup taxa. Additionally, sequences of the ...